


Upstairs Downstairs

by everyl1ttleth1ng



Series: FitzSimmons: Out of the Blue [11]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Award Ceremony AU, F/M, FitzSimmons: Out of the Blue, Pleb/Celeb AU, hello it's been a while
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 23:43:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17928611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyl1ttleth1ng/pseuds/everyl1ttleth1ng
Summary: Starlets have to start somewhere and Jemma Simmons started out as Fitz’s upstairs neighbour. Now she’s hit the big time at last and he’s left minding her dog while she sashays down the red carpet.There I was, toying with the idea of letting myself venture back into the world of fic and I find this complete thing all ready to post AND it’s award season. Perhaps it’s a sign that it’s the right time to make my comeback. Real Life would say otherwise but, hey, this is more fun!





	Upstairs Downstairs

It’s a good life, Fitz thinks to himself as he flops onto the couch with his popcorn and immediately finds Noodle’s wet nose pressed against his knee. He takes up the remote and the TV flickers on just in time for the start of the red carpet interviews.

And there she is.

“Look, Noodle! It’s Mummy!”

Noodle is at the screen in an instant, his doggy breath fogging the area around her perfect ankles.

Jemma is, as usual, the loveliest thing he’s ever seen in her sheer navy knee-length gown with brightly coloured embroidery covering the crucial bits.

Whichever over-tanned himbo it is who gets to conduct her red carpet interview gushes a little too enthusiastically into her plunging neckline and Fitz feels his hand clench involuntarily into a fist as they flit through the required conversational niceties.

“Anyone you want to say hello to at home?” the himbo asks leeringly, as if trying to ascertain if she’s single.

Fitz sucks in a breath as Jemma turns her face fully towards the camera and beams down the lens at him. She holds up a hand, waggling her navy blue nails and coos “Hi Noodle, Hi Fitz!” He forgets to let the breath go as she moves that same hand towards her perfect red mouth, kisses her fingertips and blows the kiss towards him. “Wish me luck!”

Before he quite knows what has happened, he’s on his knees on the floor beside the dog, ready to lick the screen himself.

It’s a disaster.

\---

When Jemma had moved into the apartment above him two years previously, she’d been the classic struggling actress working three menial jobs and attending every casting call she heard about. How anyone had ever managed to knock her back had been a total mystery to Fitz. She was beautiful, she was intelligent, she was eager but somehow she was also eternally unsuccessful.

Bound by homesickness and borderline poverty, she and Fitz had gotten into the habit of combining their meagre income on Friday nights to treat themselves to take-away fish and chips and beer and had behaved more like flat-mates than neighbours as the rest of each week progressed, sharing their limited resources in order to survive in LA. 

Of course Fitz was in love with her. 

So when the inevitable day came that she made it – selected from a sea of hopefuls for a plum role in an edgy and popular TV show – and Fitz was the one to whom she came to celebrate, he swallowed his disappointment at the thought that everything would change and managed to be genuinely happy for her.

\---

Nothing actually changes in any noticeable way. Sure, her clothes get slowly fancier, her work hours are longer, there’s no more free bread from the bakery she used to work at. Instead, she finds ways to pretend that Fitz has earned her shouting him their Friday night take-out. She surreptitiously stocks his pantry and then appears on his doorstep claiming that she needs to borrow a cup of something. She’s protecting his pride and he knows it, but he’s too desperately in love and too afraid to lose her to say anything.

Now, a year after that first season aired, she’s receiving her first taste of this sort of public recognition and all of the pomp and circumstance that comes with it. He can see that she’s nervous but he can also see that she’s having a ball. 

Fitz had been the one who got to painstakingly paint her nails, zip up her gown and take on the all-important Noodle-sitting duty. He tries to tell himself that it’s the next best thing to being her date, not that he could have handled that terror at all.

When her category is announced, of course Jemma wins. She’s lovely in her acceptance speech, thanking all the right people and managing just the right combination of witty and humble that makes the whole crowd love her.

Once she returns to her seat, Fitz is torn between staying glued to the screen for the possibility of further glimpses of her and forcing himself to get up and try to get a life. Harnessing all his willpower, he switches off the set and pads back to the kitchen with his empty bowl, Noodle at his heels.

When the knock at the door sounds, he expects it to be downstairs’ food delivery gotten lost again. 

He opens the door to find Jemma there instead, gold statuette in hand. 

“What are you doing here? I just saw you on the screen!”

“These things aren’t aired precisely live you know, Fitz,” she sighs with an audible eye roll as she pushes past him into his flat and catches Noodle, who hurls himself in a whirlwind of fur across the room and into her arms. “I accepted this thing hours ago.”

“But aren’t you supposed to be hobnobbing with the other superstars at some beach-side mansion?”

“Yes, but I thought I’d rather be here with Noodle.” She buries her face in the dog’s fur before muttering, “And you.”

“I’m not sure the hors d'oeuvres will be quite up to scratch,” Fitz replies. “I can always make some more popcorn?”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not hungry. I just-”

“Just what?”

“I just found myself at what was supposed to be the pinnacle, you know, Fitz? Best Newcomer and all that.” She waves the statuette vaguely. “And all I wanted was-”

“A nice hot bath,” Fitz interrupts knowingly. “And who could blame you? Your feet must be killing in those heels. My bath is bigger than yours. Want me to run one for you?”

Jemma shakes her head again, and gently places Noodle on the floor with her trophy.

“No, Fitz,” she says, carefully meeting his eye. “I wanted you. Despite all of these bizarre things that are supposed to make me happy, I realised you’re the only part of any of it that makes sense.”

Fitz gapes at her. “Me?”

She nods, sidling closer.

“You.” Jemma indicated the gold thing on the floor with a jerk of her head. “You can use that as a doorstop if you want. That’s how little it means to me next to whether or not I have you in my life.”

“You mean in your life as your wacky downstairs neighbour for whom you buy sugar only to come and borrow a cup the next day?” Fitz demands.

Jemma shakes her head, a shy smile playing at her lips. “In my life as the man I love. The man I’ve loved since we met.”

“Since we met?” he repeats incredulously.

Her expression turns anxious. “The man I’m hoping might turn out to love me back.”

“He does!” Fitz almost shouts. “I mean, I do!”

The grin that breaks out across her face is broader, he realises, more full of life and warmth and joy than the one on the screen that almost stopped his heart when her name was called out.

This is when he mostly gets it.

Only a moment after he mostly gets it, she’s in his arms and she’s kissing him.

Any part of him that hadn’t yet got it quickly catches up.

Noodle barks his approval, then scurries off to chew something.

They’re far too caught up in one another to notice.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, lovelies, if any of you are still out there shipping the heck out of FitzSimmons, I'm dipping my toe very tentatively back into this pond! I hope you like it! (And I sort of hope it's actually mine? I have zero memory of writing this but according to the doc properties I wrote it in September 2016 so that might explain why I don't remember it? Maybe I posted it to tumblr? Seems odd to have finished it and not posted it?)   
> AAAAAaaaanyway, here it is!


End file.
